Elastica Snaps Back

September 26 -- Elastica's Justine Frischmann says that she's thrilled to have the band back in America — and not just because the British group's self-titled 1995 debut album earned a gold record on these shores. Mostly, Frischmann says, she feels like Elastica is afforded more respect in the U.S. than in the U.K. — particularly on the long-awaited, and long-delayed, release of its second album, The Menace.

"I feel like America has always focused on our music more than my personal life," the 31-year-old singer-guitarist says. "I'm just so sick of covering all that [stuff] going on in Britain; I feel like with this album, the whole issue of who my ex-boyfriends are and aren't really clouded people listening to the music. There's been too much baggage."

For the record, Frischmann broke up with one of those boyfriends — Damon Albarn of the group Blur — between albums. (Pre-Elastica, she was linked to Brett Anderson of the London Suede, and played in an early incarnation of that band.) She also spent some time strung out on heroin. Add that to the head-turning pressures of sudden stardom, including feelings of rock and roll "inadequacy" because of her monied, private-school upbringing, and Frischmann says there was even a time when she had "basically given up the idea that Elastica was going to continue."

But it did. Frischmann reunited with original bassist Annie Holland, and, along with drummer Justin Welch, recruited three new members. The sextet finally brought The Menace to heel with a collection of pointed, chin-out songs such as "My Sex," "Image Change," and "Your Arse My Place," as well as a whimsical cover of the 1982 trio hit "Da Da Da," better known of late as a Volkswagen jingle.

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"I had to step back and stop being Justine Frischmann from Elastica, and I just started being a human being again," she says of what finally brought her back on keel. "It was just really, really good for me; it made me stop questioning my motives. I think that thing of having to try to behave like a star and all that … really does your head in. It takes away from what makes you do it initially, which is to just be good and make music and have fun with your friends.